
Class 



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Book A-^/\\\^ 
Copyiiglii W 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



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MARY MATTOON. 
Copy of Port rail in the possession of Mrs. Mary Mat toon VVoUott Clafp. 



Mary Mattoon 



AND 



Her Hero oftwe Revolution 



BY 



ALICE M. WALKER 



COVER DESIGN 

BY 

MARTHA GENUNG 



AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS 
1902 



THE LIBRARY OF | 


CONGRESS, 1 


Two Copies 


Received 


FEB 28 


1903 


Copyngnt 


Entry 


d^t n~ 


iCf ^- 


cuss «- 


XXc. No. 


z;- u^ 


3 1^ 


COPY 


B. 






Copyright 1902 

BY 

Alice M. Walker 






^^^ ^otbe 



ff^ax^ /iDattoon Cbapter, 
BauGbters ot tbe Hmerican IRevolution, 

ot Bmberst, ^assacbusette, 

THIS STORY OF ITS HEROINE AND HER HERO 

is H)eDicateD 



Fore^word 



IN presenting to the public this sketch of Mary Mattoon 
and her Hero, the author makes grateful ack- 
nowledgment to the members of the Mattoon family 
and to other interested persons who contributed material 
for the illustrations as well as much information. Of the 
grandchildren of the Mattoons, Mr. Isaac Gridley of 
Brooklyn, N. Y., furnished a copy of the Trumbull por- 
trait of the General, and Mrs. Dorothy G. Vannevar, of 
Kendall Green, Massachusetts, gave information. Of 
the great grandchildren, Mrs. Mary Mattoon Wolcott 
Clapp, Berkeley, California, sent copies of the portraits of 
Mary Mattoon and the General ; Mr. William Mattoon 
King, New York City, sent a copy of a portrait of the 
General ; Mrs. Edith Dwight Wolcott Davis of Lynch- 
burg, Virginia, sent a copy of the miniature of the Gen- 
eral; Mr. Ithamar C. Cowles, Unionville, Ohio, sent a 
photograph of the sword and table, Mrs. Ella D. Robin- 
son, South Hartwick, New York, gave items of interest ; 
and all of these contributed much valuable information. 
Mrs. Anna M. Bardwell, South Pasadena, California, a 
great granddaughter of Elizabeth Mattoon Clapp, sister 



6 Foreword 

of the General, furnished information. Mrs. Austin 
Street, Holyoke, Massachusetts, a niece of Mary Mattoon, 
loaned a family Bible belonging to Noah Dickinson, con- 
taining a record of the birth of Mary Mattoon. Miss 
Kate Conkey, Amherst, Massachusetts, loaned an auto- 
graph letter and other valuable documents. Among 
others to whom acknowledgments are due are Mr. M. E. 
Dwight, New York City, Mrs. Isa F. Sanford, Bunker 
Hill, Illinois, Mr. John B. Tyler, Billerica, Massachusetts, 
Mr. Timothy Spaulding, Northampton, Massachusetts, 
and many residents of Amherst. Among the authorities 
consulted are Carpenter & Morehouse, History of Amherst \ 
Judd, History of Hadley ; Parmenter, History of Pelhain ; 
Chase, History of Dartmouth College^ a?id Hanover^ N. H.\ 
Chapman, Manual of Dartmouth College; The Hampshire 
Gazette-^ and the well known books by Alice Morse 
Earle. A. M. W. 

Amherst^ Massachusetts^ ig02. 



Mary Mattoon and Her Hero 
of the Revolution 



THE fertile lands comprised within the limits of Old 
Hadley and her " Third Precinct," the Amherst 
of to-day, were bought in 1658 from the Indian 
tribe of the Norwottucks by John Pynchon of Springfield. 
" In consideration of two hundred fathom of wompon, 
and twenty fathom and one large coat at eight fathom " 
the three Indian chieftains, Umpanchla — aUas Wom- 
scom, Quonquont — alias Wompshaw, and Chickwalopp 
— alias Wowahillowa, completed the bargain. After 
reserving certain fields on which the squaws might 
plant and harvest their scanty crops of corn, and stipula- 
ting for " liberty to hunt deer, fowl, etc., and to take fish, 
beaver or otter, etc.," the Sachem Chickwalopp made for 
his signature a circular figure with a neck, Umpanchla 
drew a bow and string, and Quonquont produced some 



8 Mary Mat to on and 

zigzag marks upon the deed, which was duly witnessed 
and executed. Thus passed forever from the possession 
of the River Indians these happy hunting grounds of 
their fathers. 

Certain " withdrawers " from the church in Hartford, 
who had employed Major Pynchon as their agent, paid 
him ^62, IDS. in money, grain and merchandise for the 
land east of the Connecticut River. In 1661 twenty- 
eight persons had taken up their residence in the " New 
Plantation," which they had named Hadley from a town 
in England, presumably dear to the homesick hearts of 
some among their number. The settlement prospered 
and spread eastward toward the Pelham hills, and south- 
ward toward the *' Great Falls." A meeting-house was 
built, and in 1667 a grammar school was founded from 
funds provided by Edward Hopkins. In spite of Indian 
wars which followed in rapid succession, the year 1703 
found hamlets springing up all along the river. Before 
this date a man named Foote had built a log hut near the 
site of the present East Amherst meeting-house, and had 
attempted to live there by hunting and fishing. His plan 
did not succeed, and the eastern part of the town for 
many years after was known as " Foote Folly Swamp." 
This fact, however, did not deter the venturesome from 
leaving the river banks and securing land along that part 
of the settlement within the present Amherst limits. In 
1730 the " East Inhabitants" had become so numerous 




EBENEZER MATIOON. 



Copy of a miniature in the possession of Airs. B.dith Wolcott Davis. 



Her Hero of the Revolution g 

as to require a place in which to bury their dead, and we 
find them appointing a " Comity " to lay out a burying 
ground. To-day in the old West cemetery they and their 
descendants sleep. 

In 1734 a petition signed by these " East Inhabitants," 
praying that they might be set off a separate precinct, 
was presented to the General Court. The prayer 
was granted, and in 1735 Hadley Third Precinct was 
'' erected," on condition that within three years a house 
of public worship should be built, and a minister settled. 
A committee to build the meeting-house was immediately 
appointed, and Rev. David Parsons was engaged to be 
the pastor. About one hundred years after the settlement 
of Springfield this entry was made in the church record 
book: ''November, 1735, I Began my ministry at Had- 
ley." Immediately following we read of the ordination 
of Rev. David Parsons, Nov. 7, 1739, as the first minis- 
ter of the new church. This famous divine was a grad- 
uate of Harvard, scholarly and orthodox, a man of power- 
ful intellect and shrewd mind, an ideal preacher of the 
old school. The records of the church for m.any years 
are almost entirely devoted to votes concerning Rev. 
Parsons : how to raise his " sallery," how to procure the 
enormous quantities of wood which he required, how to 
seat the meeting-house in which he preached, giving each 
person a place according to his standing in the commu- 
nity. Committees were appointed from year to year to 



10 Mary Mat toon and 

arrange with regard to the " Hind Seats," and the "Late 
Seators," and the seats in the *' upper Teer in the Gal- 
lery," but these were matters of minor importance. The 
Rev. Parsons " sallery " and his firewood must be pro- 
vided even before the " able bodied person " was engaged 
to sweep the meeting-house and summon the faithful by 
blowing "ye kunk" on Sundays. 



II. 



THIS old First Church of Hadley, Third Precinct, 
was originally composed of sixteen men, all 
householders and heads of families. The wives, 
daughters and sisters were admitted to membership 
during the first year. Among these sixteen names we 
find that of Eleazer " Mattun," who had come down 
from Northfield and linked his fortunes with that of the 
new Precinct and its recently organized church. The 
families which constituted this frontier settlement were 
from Old Hadley and from Hatfield, and were bound 
together by ties of relationship, by common interests and 
beliefs, and by a spirit of mutual helpfulness which 
enabled them to obtain the necessaries of life. Four 
days after the church was organized the pastor baptized 
Jonathan, son of Jonathan and Sarah Cowls, and soon 



Her Hero of the Revolution i r 

after three other children were baptized. During that 
one pastorate five hundred and eighty-three baptisms^ 
nearly all those of children upon whom the parents had 
sought the blessings of the covenant, bore witness to the 
godly character of those pioneers, the members of the 
First Church of Amherst. 

The century had been eventful. The shadow of Indian 
wars and massacres had hindered the planting of settle- 
ments at any distance from the river, which was the only 
means of communication. After one hundred years, with 
the exception of the Connecticut valley and Westfield, 
the interior of Massachusetts was still a wilderness. Chil- 
dren gathered around the blazing logs in the cabins, lis- 
tened with interest to tales from father and mother, who 
kept in vivid remembrance the stirring scenes in which 
they had borne a part. The grandfather of that early 
day could tell of King Philip's war, of the Indian attack 
on Hadley, and of the massacre at Bloody Brook, and 
perhaps could recall the events of the first journey through 
the forests to Wethersfield and thence to Hadley. No 
doubt in many a Hadley dwelling there were related 
incidents of family experiences that carried both story 
teller and listener back across the Atlantic to far off, 
dearly loved English homes. 

Eleazer " Mattun " could have told a tale of how his 
father, Philip Mattoon, when a boy, made the perilous 
journey from Glasgow, Scotland, and sought his fortunes 



12 Mary Mattoon and 

in the Massachusetts wilderness. Sir Walter Scott in 
Peiferil of the Peak describes the attack on Hadley by the 
Indians, and says of New England : " There thousands 
of our best and most godly men are content to be the 
inhabitants of the desert, rather encountering the unen- 
lightened savage than stooping to extinguish, under the 
oppression practiced in Britain, the light that is within 
their own minds." Such doubtless was this Scottish boy 
Philip, who in 1676 was sent with a company from Bos- 
ton to defend the towns along the Connecticut River 
from Indian invasion. Conquering the foe, he fell him- 
self a victim to the charms of Sarah Hawks, a Springfield 
beauty, and the next year he removed to that locality, and 
married her. 

Eleazer " Mattun " was born in Deerfield in 1690, in 
the midst of troubled times. One hundred and fifty 
Indians were encamped that year on the side of Sugar 
Loaf. A garrison of soldiers was sent from Hartford to 
protect the town. Two little children were scalped in 
Deerfield village in 1693, and the next year the savages 
attacked the fort. The people of Deerfield were always 
terrified and always in danger, and the boyhood of Elea- 
zer must have been deeply shadowed by the warfare of 
those early years. We know but little about him except 
that he lived for a time in Northfield, where he was 
deacon in the church, and that he removed to Hadley in 
1734, where he also served as deacon. He had at this 



Her Hero of the Revolution /j 

time one son, Ebenezer, who was sixteen years old. 
In the records of town meeting of Hadley Third Pre- 
cinct, after the date 1739, we find the entry : 

" Voted, yt the present Comity for the carrying on ye 
Building ye meeting House shall dispose of ye first 
hundred and fifty pounds yt is and shall be paid by Dea 
Eleazer Mattoon as they think best." 

The " Comity " evidently referred the matter to the 
town, for in the next town-meeting warrant the freeholders 
are asked to consider " how Dea Mattoon's first hundred 
and fifty pounds shall be disposd withall." The gift of 
so large a sum of money in those days proved that the 
donor was both wealthy and generous. 

Eleazer Mattoon died in February, 1767. The general 
opinion concerning his character is illustrated by an 
anecdote. At the time of his death, the snow was so 
deep upon the ground that it was proposed to draw the 
body two miles to West cemetery on a hand sled. Hear- 
ing this the Rev. David Parsons cried out in horror : 
"Such a saint as deacon Mattoon to be dragged to his 
grave like a dead dog !" and added with all the authority 
given to the Rev. Clergy, " Never !" The bearers were 
therefore obliged to lift the body on their shoulders and 
to tramp their weary way through the snow to the burial 
place. 

The discovery of this good deacon Eleazer Mattoon 
among the original members of the First Church of 



/^ Mary Mattoon and 

Hadley Third Precinct brings to our notice a family 
whose history was identified with that of the town 
through the most critical period of its existence, and 
whose honored name is borne to-day by many worthy 
descendants. 

The names Ebenezer, John, Samuel, Joseph and Wil- 
liam were common in Hadley. Young Ebenezer Mattoon 
therefore was in the fashion as regards his name. Being 
an only son, he probably inherited much of his father's 
property. In 1747 he married Dorothy, daughter of Dr. 
Nathaniel Smith, the first physician in the town and 
grandson of Philip Smith, whose death Cotton Mather 
ascribed to witchcraft. Ebenezer and his young wife 
settled in North Amherst, exactly where we do not know. 
Eight years passed, marked by the birth of two daughters, 
Dorothy and Elizabeth. On the farm, a part of which 
in 1858 was the homestead of George W. Hobart, three 
miles north of the center of the town, was born, Aug. 19, 
1755, Ebenezer Mattoon Jr., great-grandson of Philip, 
the Scotch soldier, and destined himself to become a 
Hero of the American Revolution. Zebina Montague 
tells us that the house in which this son was born 
was torn down, but that in 1858 one built upon its site 
was still standing. This site is declared by an excel- 
lent authority to be on the south side of Pine street in 
•North Amherst " City," now Cushman. 

From this home Goodman Ebenezer Mattoon came 



Her Hero of the Revolutio7i i§ 

down on horseback over the rough and stony road with 
his baby five days old. In the old first meeting-house on 
college hill, Aug. 24, 1755, Ebenezer Jr. was christened 
by Rev. David Parsons. The minister took the child, 
dressed in its long white robe, and sprinkled water upon 
its face, while all the children stood on the seats that they 
might see the interesting ceremony. History says that 
infants usually cried during this ordeal. We imagine 
that our hero smiled into the stern face of the godly 
parson, showing thus early the philosophic endurance of 
discomfort and the sunny disposition which were predom- 
inant traits in his character throughout a long and hon- 
ored life. A stormy autumn followed this birth and 
baptism. In November the HampsJm-e Gazette records : 
''An awful earthquake was felt in Amherst." Within 
the year the mother of the little Ebenezer died, leaving 
three children. The sturdy boy flourished, wore his 
Httle homespun dress, with blue and white checked linen 
*' tier," ate for his breakfast bread, pumpkin, berries or 
baked apples with milk, slept in the wooden cradle or the 
trundle bed, and ran bareheaded and barefooted all day 
long about the farm. Who made these garments, and 
cooked the meals, and cared for the family, we do not 
know. We are told that in 1759 the father married 
Sarah, daughter of John Alvord, of Northampton, and 
thus provided a step-mother for his family, in time to sew 
the deerskin breeches which the boy would need at an 
early age. 



1 6 Mary Mattoon and 



III. 



THE district of Amherst was indeed a wild and 
lonely hamlet. Built on a broad plateau sloping 
to Hadley on the west and to the foot of Pelham 
hills on the east, its farms were as fertile as any in the 
Connecticut valley. The dwellers in its scattered houses 
raised corn, rye and barley, which was bolted by hand, 
and ground in the mill at Mill Hollow. Taxes and min- 
ister's "salleries " were paid in grain. Horses and sheep 
roamed in the woods on the mountain sides, but cows 
were under a keeper. Long and lean swine fought bears, 
wolves and rattlesnakes in the depths of the forest, and 
were allowed upon the highways only when decorated, 
with a yoke " as long up and down as 2\ times the depth 
of the neck." Flocks of geese infested the streets, and 
on warm days crowded into the space under the meeting- 
house in Old Hadley, sometimes making audible response 
to the service in the room above. 

The name of Dickinson is borne to-day by many 
descendants of the early Amherst farmers. Ebenezer 
Dickinson, the founder of the family in Amherst, was the 
son of Nehemiah, and grandson of Nathaniel, one of the 
original settlers of Hadley, who came from Wethersfield 
in 1659. Ebenezer's daughter Mary married in 1757 
Noah Dickinson, son of Jonathan, who came to Amherst 



Her Hero of the Revolutio7i // 

from Hatfield. Their daughter, Mary, born March lo, 
1758, probably in a house on the south side of Main 
street near the corner of East street, is the heroine of 
our story. The following taken from the family Bible of 
Noah Dickinson, now owned by his granddaughter, Mrs. 
Austin Street of Holyoke, is the family record : 

" Noah Dickinson and Mary Dickinson maryed in 
April ye 28 1757 

Mary Dickinson born in March the 10 1758 and mar- 
ried the 8th of July 1779 

Mother Mary Dickinson died April 13 1763 
Farther Jonathan Died December ye 31, 1788 
Noah Dickinson and SeusanahWard maryed in March 
13 1792 

Jonathan Dickinson born in May the 19 1775 
Father Noah Dickinson Died May the 28th 18 15 In 
the eighty sicks year of his age. 

John Dickinson Born June 3 Third 18 17 " 
The little boy whom Mary Dickinson was to marry and 
who was to become the famous General Mattoon, who 
fought in the battle of Saratoga, was then about three years 
old, wearing his checked pinafore and eating his bread 
and milk on the farm in North Amherst. 

In 1759 Amherst, although still a district, received its 
present name. The Scotch-Irish settlers in Pelham used 
potatoes as daily food. Amherst farmers also had begun 
to raise potatoes, though many aristocrats thought them 



i8 Mary Mattoon and 

hardly fit to eat, and could not imagine what Josiah 
Pierce of Hadley intended to do with the eight bushels 
which he dug and put into his cellar. It is quite possible 
that little Mary Dickinson may have been given potatoes 
to eat with her milk, and if so, they agreed with her, and 
enabled her to withstand the cold of that first winter, 
clothed as she was in the thinnest of linen garments. 
When she was two years old her father, Noah Dickinson, 
went down to West street in South Amherst and ordered 
of James Merrick, the shoemaker, a pair of "pumps" 
for his little girl, for which he paid 14s. 3d. From finest 
lamb's wool Mary's mother knit the stockings to be worn 
inside the " pumps." The child's Sunday gown may 
have been made of India calico, printed in gay colors, 
cut low in the neck, with short sleeves, and outside 
:sleeves to tie on in cold weather. 

The practical training of children in those days began 
almost at birth. Some knitting needles were soon put 
into the hands of our little heroine, and she was taught 
the beginning of what was to be a daily task. Where 
she first went to school we do not know, but that she did 
go we are sure, for though the schooling of a girl was 
considered of much less importance than her instruction 
in household duties, yet ev«n girls were expected to learn 
to read and to write. The principal early schools in 
Amherst were kept by men, but three " scool dames " 
were hired to teach in the summer before little Mary was 



Her Hero of the Revolution ig 

born, and it is very probable that in some farmer's kitchen 
such a dame taught the child to read. 

The inhabitants of Amherst were scattered over many- 
miles, when in 1764 it was voted to build four school- 
houses. A controversy arose as to their location, all 
parents desiring them built in their own immediate 
neighborhood. The north schoolhouse was located at 
the " City." There the boy Ebenezer Mattoon, now 
grown large enough to wear a skin tight nankeen suit, or 
one of calico printed with bars running up and down, 
which produced the effect of a striped eel, was taught 
from the primer, psalter and testament, and switched with 
birch rods on his bare legs whenever his attention wan- 
dered from the dull task before him. He was, however, 
one of those of whom Cotton Mather said : " The Youth 
of this Country are verie sharp and early Ripe in their 
Capacities." There is no doubt but that the boy 
absorbed not only all the learning in the poorly printed 
text-books, but also all that the teachers of the day were 
able to impart. A child in old New England was never 
allowed to be idle, but to a healthy, active lad, the tasks 
assigned were only pleasures. To feed and milk the 
cows, and to care for the lambs, to catch a ride on the 
young colt, and to carry the corn on horseback to Mill 
Hollow to be ground, were pleasant features of the happy 
out of door life of the farmer's boy. 

The eldest son, and for several years the only one. 



20 Mary Mattooii and 

young Ebenezer Mattoon became his father's companion 
and friend. Together they hunted in the forests along Mt. 
Toby, and followed tracks of bear and deer, and brought 
back many a fat wild turkey for the Sunday dinner. 
They picked up in the woods pieces of resinous pine 
called candlewood, to burn for light, placing them upon 
the flat stones in the corner of the fireplace, or carrying 
them down the uncertain cellar stairs when in search of 
apples and cider. Walnuts and hickory-nuts were gath- 
ered to be exchanged for groceries. In early spring 
father and son went into the woods, and tapped the maple 
trees amid the lightly falling sugar snow. What joy to 
the susceptible heart of the New England boy to camp 
out on the mountain side, and wake to see the stars 
through cracks in the roof of the rough shanty, and to 
hear the hooting of the owl from the mysterious depths 
of the primeval forest ! Wolves prowled about just beyond 
the firelight glow, and slunk away at sunrise. Wander- 
ing Indians from across the river visited the camp in 
search of a kind of liquor wrongly named " Kill-devil," 
and tasted curiously the boiling maple sap. But none of 
these visitors harmed the boy. 

Fearing nothing, he learned to find his way along the 
Indian trails, and with keen, wide open eyes gathered a 
store of practical knowledge, of much greater value than 
the finished sugar which at the close of the season was 
carried home to use in trade and for "sweetening." 



Her Hero of the Revolution 21 

Sometimes the farmer and his boy found a bee tree in 
Hadley woods, and took from its hollow trunk a store of 
honey to delight the hearts of mother and the girls. 
Again, when game was scarce and pork low in the 
" powdering tub," they rode on horseback to the fishing 
place at Hockanum, where in 1773, forty salmon, the 
largest weighing between thirty and forty pounds, were 
caught in one day. There the river sometimes seemed 
so full of shad that the boatmen struck their oars against 
them. Sturgeon were taken with spears above the falls. 
Lampreys were very numerous, and were caught in the 
hands at night by the light of a birch-bark torch. During 
some of these excursions the fishermen may have passed 
the cabin where dwelt the family of Silvine Dupee, an 
Acadian from Evangeline's land, who with his wife and 
seven children was for five years charitably supported in 
Northampton. Their strange dress and their jabbering 
in French made these poor exiles objects of curiosity, and 
not a detail of all this escaped the eyes of the enquiring 
boy. 

Thus studying little from books and much from Nature, 
young Ebenezer Mattoon spent the days of early boy- 
hood. On Sundays we find him in the old church on 
College hill, seated beside his father in the square box 
pew, listening to long sermons preached by the Rev. 
David Parsons, and wondering if they will never end. 
We feel certain that he who, when a blind old man of 



22 Mary Mattoon and 

over eighty, loved fun and practical jokes as well as did 
the children who were his chosen friends, was in his youth 
a mischievous, rollicking boy, in whose vicinity the tithing- 
man found it well to linger. Having sisters of his own, he 
probably took no especial interest in girls, yet sometimes 
he may have noticed seated by her mother among the 
women, our little maiden from East Street, with big blue 
eyes and serious face. All those who remember her 
to-day tell us that Mary Mattoon was not much of a 
talker and was of a reticent disposition, so we are justi- 
fied in believing that she was a quiet child, and therefore 
the more attractive to her opposite in nature. For some 
unknown reason Mary Dickinson was not baptized until 
she was eight years of age. This rite, performed Aug. 
lo, 1766, by Rev. David Parsons, probably took place in 
the old church on Sunday, and was witnessed by the 
assembled congregation, the six slaves then owned in 
town grinning from their corner in the gallery. If Eben- 
ezer Mattoon, now eleven years of age, had not before 
noticed the heroine of our story, no doubt that day he 
gazed with astonishment at the big girl receiving baptism 
like a baby. 

At this time both children may have been attending the 
school taught by Josiah Pierce of Hadley, who received for 
his services $5.33 each month, and " boarded round, "keep- 
ing also an evening " cyphering school." Teachers were 
paid in produce, and the parents of the children were 



Her Hero of the Revolution 2j 

obliged to furnish wood. Lead pencils and slates were 
unknown, and paper was scarce, which accounts for the 
small writing so hard to read to-day. Quills from the geese 
were made into pens, and homemade ink was manufactured 
by boiling the bark of the swamp maple in water until it 
became thick, and then diluting with copperas. We hope 
our little East Amherst girl was allowed to receive what 
instruction schoolmaster Pierce could give, and was not 
obliged, like a little girl in Hatfield, to sit on the school- 
house steps and learn what she could by listening to the 
boys who were inside. In 1769 Mr. Pierce was compelled 
to close his school for want of wood, and thus his work 
in Amherst came to an untimely end. Ebenezer, however, 
at fourteen years of age, had decided that he would get 
an education. In his own words we read: ''My studies 
preparatory for college were pursued under the tuition of 
Rev. David Parsons, the first minister of Amherst." 
Just when he began these studies, which were probably 
" pursued " as a member of the family of the learned 
divine, we do not know. 

In 1770 the family of Mattoon, which now included 
seven children, had moved from the " City " into a 
mansion, supposed to have been built by Ebenezer, Sr., 
on the east side of East Pleasant street. North Amherst, a 
short distance south of the cemetery. This large square 
dwelling has always been known as the Mattoon house, 
and is noted for the beautifully carved mantel and other 



24 Mary Mattoon and 

wood work in the parlor, which in its day marked the 
proprietor as being a man of wealth and taste. He 
owned at this time 2 oxen, 2 horses, 4 cows, 13 sheep, 3 
swine, and had £(io at interest. His personal property was 
worth ^20, 15s., his house and land ;^58, his real estate 
;^75, IDS, amounting in all to ;^96, 5s. We learn this by 
consulting the tax-list, and can see why Ebenezer 
Mattoon, being so well off in this world's goods and 
having another boy Eleazer to keep him company, may 
have decided to educate his eldest son. We leave the 
latter to " pursue " his preparatory studies, and turn our 
attention to the little East Street girl and her training in 
her childhood's home. 

Noah Dickinson was a thrifty farmer and owned much 
fertile land in the part o\ the town least settled at that 
time. There was no church or common. Main street, 
laid out around a swamp where the First Congregational 
church now stands, could show but one dwelling between 
East Amherst and the center. The Dickinson house 
was on the South Amherst road, and here it is sup- 
posed Mary was born. The family afterward lived in 
the house on Main street still standing next to the 
Adams house. Close by were the tavern kept by 
Oliver Clapp, and Aaron Warner's house and blacksmith 
shop. The roads to North Amherst and to Pelham led 
through thick woods. From these sometimes a deer 
came out, and off on Pelham hills wolves howled at night- 




EBENEZER MATTOON. 

Copy of portrait in the possession of Mrs. Mary Mattoon Wolcott Clapp. 



Her Hero of the Revohction 2§ 

fall. The children in those East Street homes did not 
need a curfew to call them in at an early hour, for there 
was no temptation to linger on the dreary unlighted 
streets. When Mary Dickinson was twelve years old her 
father was more prosperous than many of his neighbors. 
In 1770 he owned 2 horses, 3 cows, 2 pigs and 3 oxen, 
personal estate worth ^15, 6s., and real estate worth 
£^2, 15s., the total being ;^58, is., for which he was 
taxed. From this we learn that although not luxurious, 
the home in which our little girl lived until her marriage 
was one of comfort. Her mother was a thrifty housewife, 
well versed in all old fashioned arts and crafts. She 
was her daughter's only teacher in all things practical 
and ornamental. 

We imagine that the school days of the little girl were 
early ended, for from incidents in after life we know that 
Noah Dickinson did not care much for education, and 
in those old days the father's decision was law. An old 
valley farmer said : " In summer the girls ought to work 
in the kitchen ; in winter it is too far for them to go to 
school." Much learning for women was considered a 
dangerous thing. Sir John Winthrop, in his history of 
New England, written in 1640, speaks of a "godly young 
woman of special parts, who has fallen into a sad infirm- 
ity, the loss of her understanding and reason, which has 
been growing on her divers years, by occasion of reading 
and writing, and had written many books." It is not 



26 Mary Alattoon and 

probable that our heroine went crazy from too much 
study. 

The New England Primer, which Cotton Mather called 
" a little watering pot," may have encouraged Mary's 
young ideas to sprout. Opposite the letter K she read 
the words, 

" King Charles the good. 
No man of blood." 

After the Revolution her children studying the Primer, 
found at the letter K, 

" Kings and queens 
Are gaud}^ things." 

Little Mary was taught to make herself useful in the 
house and on the farm. She was an only child, and 
therefore in many cases performed tasks usually allotted 
to a farmer's boy. These she thoroughly enjoyed, for 
they took her out of doors. Little children in those 
days were employed in sowing seeds and in weeding the 
flax-fields. The three cows belonging to Noah Dickin- 
son roamed the woods and highways, and betrayed their 
hiding places by the clangor of the bells about their 
necks. Mr. Judd quotes, *' Toward night the lowing herd 
moved slowly o'er the lea," adding, " and came home. 
Some needed the aid of a driver." Both boys and girls 
delighted to drive the cows, and Mary may have driven 
for her father. She fed the chickens, and hunted for 
eggs, and helped her mother catch the geese and draw 



Her Hero of the Revolutio7i 2^ 

long stockings over their heads, and pull out the feathers 
to make feather-beds, and the best quills to make pens. 
Becoming afterwards an energetic woman, there is na 
doubt that as a child she loved best these out door tasks. 
We hope she was not made to sit in stocks, or to wear a 
harness or a backboard to help her stand erect, but chil- 
dren in those days were so precocious, so painfully 
anxious to be good, that, being no exception to the rule, 
she did as she was told. 

Our little maiden learned to make the hasty pudding 
for her father's breakfast. One or two Old Hadley fam- 
ilies were said to eat 365 such puddings in a year, so 
great was their fondness for this delicacy. She learned 
to knit her father's mittens and stockings, and to sew 
his deerskin trousers and checked linen shirts, and her 
own nankeen pantalets, which hung down below her 
frocks to the tops of her stout leather shoes. She helped 
her mother wash these shirts, and starch them with a 
starch made from potatoes. In making bread, both white 
and brown, raised with yeast from the settlings in the 
bottom of the beer-barrel, she early became expert. One 
housewife living in the days before the Revolution was 
said to have made "20 large cheeses in a given time from 
the milk of one cow, besides drying several bushels of 
apples." Her husband said of her : " She looketh well 
to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of 
idleness. She reacheth forth her hand to her needy 



28 Mary Mattoon and 

friends and neighbors. I owe my health to the vigilance, 
industry and care of my wife. For the constant assiduity 
and press of her daily and painful labor in the kitchen, 
the great Lord of the Household will reward her in due 
time." If Noah Dickhison's "3 cows" were each equal to 
the one owned by this woman, Mary and her mother may 
have made sixty "large cheeses," to say nothing of dried 
apples. As, in addition to her other virtues, the house- 
wife before mentioned was a "nonesuch gardener,%vorking 
bravely in her garden," so doubtless our mother and her 
daughter did their share of work among the cabbages 
and turnips. 

Mr. Judd says that Hadley women usually had a little 
plot of flowers in front of their dwellings. So we love to 
think that Mary, when the duties of the day were done, 
weeded the sweet-williams and marigolds in front of the 
East Street dwelling, dreaming the while dreams com- 
mon to happy girlhood the world over. We certainly 
know that there in that old house this Amherst girl of 
olden time learned thoroughly to weave and spin and 
knit and sew. She practiced all domestic avocations so 
cheerfully and perfectly that in after life she became a 
notable housewife. Her famous husband was proud to 
fill his home with guests, that they might taste the prod- 
ucts of her skill and envy him the possession of such a 
domestic treasure. But no suggestion of this had entered 
the mind of the little girl whom we have seen working 



Her Hero of the Revolution 2g 

among her flowers, and who, though well grown in height, 
was but a child at heart. 

Young Oliver Clapp married EHzabeth Mattoon, and 
brought her to live near by in the tavern. Her brother 
Ebenezer, fitting for college with Rev. David Parsons, 
sometimes came down to see his sister, and to taste the 
famous " flip " for mixing which she afterM^ard became 
noted. It maybe that by means of this casual acquaint- 
ance the child, Mary Dickinson, was transformed into a 
woman, and the romance was begun through which 
Ebenezer Mattoon was to become " her hero of the 
Revolution." 



IV. 



OUR forefathers considered it their first duty to 
Christianize and civilize the Indians. The Rev. 
Eleazer Wheelock, son of a Connecticut farmer, 
a graduate of Yale in 1733 and a follower of Jonathan 
Edwards, when settled in " Lebanon Crank," pondered 
this subject and discussed it with his friend Whitefield 
and other revivalists of the time of the "great awakening." 
To eke out his meager salary Mr. Wheelock devoted 
part of his leisure to preparing boys for college. Samson 



JO Mary Mat toon and 

Occum, a Mohegan Indian from the tribe near New Lon- 
•don, was received as a pupil into his home. This associ- 
ation deepened his interest in the subject of Indian edu- 
cation, and he conceived the idea of removing Indian chil- 
dren from their unciviHzed surroundings, and educating 
them with English youth, that they might become mission- 
aries to their own people. Through manifold exertions 
Mr. Wheelock established " The Indian Charity School 
in America," near the present site of Willimantic. Joseph 
Brant, the brother of Sir William Johnson's Indian wife, 
was a pupil. Whitefield provided a schoolhouse. Ben- 
edict Arnold sent a gift of money. Walter Scott of Edin- 
burgh sent five dollars. To reach the distant tribes, how- 
ever, it was necessary to remove into the Indian country. 
Wheelock applied for land on the Susquehanna, and made 
desperate attempts to secure a permanent location and a 
charter. Samson Occum, the Indian, who had developed 
a genius for preaching, was sent to England to raise 
money for the school. He preached in London before the 
king, and through England and Scotland, and in John 
Wesley's foundry, and the power of his eloquence secured 
■generous gifts. 

Governors of the different states, upon whom he had 
unsuccessfully urged the claims of his project before a 
fund had been obtained, now were willing to listen to 
Wheelock's plans. The definite promise of a charter in 
New Hampshire, however, decided the matter. Ex-Gov- 



Her Hero of the Revolution Ji 

ernor Wentworth conveyed to the trustees his "500 acre 
lott " in the southwest corner of Hanover. In little 
more than six weeks the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock had 
taken up his abode upon this " lott," in a cabin in the 
wilderness. The site of the prospective college in 1770 
is thus described : ''- A choice tract of land of more than 
3300 acres, which butts upon the Falls in the river, called 
White River Falls, and is the only place convenient for a 
bridge across the Connecticut river, it being but 8 rods 
wide, with well elevated rocks for abutments on each side 
and on a straight line from Portsmouth to Crown Point, 
to which is a good road." From this place, described by 
a disappointed claimant as " a town where boards can't 
be sawed or bread raised," Wheelock joyfully sent out 
this advertisement, Aug. 23, 1770: "My Indian Charity 
school is now become a body corporate and politic, under 
the name of Dartmouth College." 

Sept. 16, 1770, Madam Wheelock and family, riding in 
an English coach, accompanied by a party of students on 
foot, set out from Lebanon on their arduous journey into 
the New Hampshire wilderness. They passed through 
the Connecticut valley, fording the rivers and making a 
path with the greatest difficulty through the woods. They 
reached their destination safely. Madam Wheelock found 
her future home to be a log cabin built without stone, 
brick, glass or nails, and furnished with beds made of 
hemlock boughs. This home was located in the midst of 



^2 Mary Mattooji and 

one thousand acres of white pine forest. The rocky- 
knob on which the observatory now stands was densely 
covered with trees of hard wood, and the ground was 
hidden with a thick carpet of moss. The southeast por- 
tion of the tract was a hemlock swamp. The historian 
says : " A more solitary and romantic situation can sel- 
dom be found. The howling of wild beasts and the 
plaintive notes of the owl greatly added to the gloominess 
of the night season." The heart of Madam Wheelock 
may have failed her, but the fact is not recorded. 

A terrible plague of worms had destroyed the crops 
the preceding summer, leaving nothing but pumpkins, 
on which the pioneers mostly subsisted, their other scanty 
provisions having to be carried from Northfield and 
Northampton, through snow which for months that first 
season was four feet deep. June 12, 1772, ice formed an 
inch thick by the college door. The work of education, 
however, went bravely on. The first commencement grad- 
uated a class of four. The exercises were held in the open 
air, on a platform of logs, ascended by a single hemlock 
plank. Scorning this primitive stage, one of the Indian 
students delivered an oration in his native language from 
the bough of an overhanging pine tree. 

We do not know why Ebenezer Mattoon of Hadley 
Third Precinct, having finished his preparation with Rev. 
David Parsons, ignored the claims of Harvard and Yale, 
and selected this new college in the northern woods for 



Her Hero of the Revolution jj 

his Alma Mater. The fact that another Amherst boy 
David Kellogg, son of Daniel Kellogg, was already a 
student in the institution, having entered in the class of 
1775, indicates that through him word may have come to 
town of the advantages at Dartmouth. There is no doubt 
that our candidate was well prepared according to the 
standard of those days. On horseback and alone, a boy 
of seventeen, he made the journey, and in company with 
ten Indians from Canada entered the class of 1776. 

That winter also food was scarce, and much had to be 
transported more than one hundred miles. So urgent 
was the need for fodder, which had to be brought forty 
miles on sleds by oxen, that President Wheelock, as Jus- 
tice of the Peace, gave men a warrant to travel on Sunday. 
In the intervals of study the students were expected to 
work upon the farm. They paid for board 6s. 6d. each 
week, and provided their own utensils, buying all needed 
articles in a general store in one of the buildings. The 
college boys cut logs, which were floated down the river 
to Springfield, where they were sold, and thus the scanty 
income of the institution was increased. 

The president of the college was revered by all, and 
exercised over his students a truly parental authority. In 
1773 the roof of his log house became so leaky that rain 
came through upon his papers. " E. Mattoon," now a 
sophomore, volunteered to help build the new house. 
In after life he told how the frames, made of heavy tim- 
3 



j^ Mary Mattoon and 

bers, were raised with a united effort. One of these 
came ver}/ near falHng, and those beneath held it until 
help came, though blood was forced from their nostrils. 

A certain John Ledyard of Hartford entered college 
with young Mattoon, driving to Hanover in a sulky, on 
which he transported a quantity of cloth, and other para- 
phernalia of the theatre, that he might indulge his fond- 
ness for "play-acting," while fitting himself to be a mis- 
sionary to the Indians. There was no college bell, and 
the freshmen were obliged to take turns in blowing on a 
conch shell to call the students together. Ledyard con- 
sidered this duty degrading and ran away, only to return 
and try again, but his haughty spirit could not endure the 
ordeal to which he was subjected. Mattoon, always ready 
for anything exciting, helped Ledyard fell one of the 
fCnormous pines on the river bank, and from it they dug 
out a canoe fifty feet long and three feet wide. Together 
they built a shelter of willow twigs in one end of the 
■boat and confiscated a bear skin and some venison. 
Then, seeing his friend supplied with a copy of Ovid and 
a Greek testament, Mattoon cheerfully helped him launch 
upon the stream, which bore him through the wilderness 
to Hartford, one hundred and forty miles below. Our 
hero, though quite willing to assist another in this fool- 
hardy enterprise, was not tempted to embark himself. 
He was in college for quite another purpose, although 
perfectly willing to engage in any kind of labor. 



Her Hero of the Revolution J5 

In 1839, when a blind old man, General Mattoon visited 
Dartmouth College, and desired to be led to the river- 
bank, that he might lay his hands upon the stump from 
which he helped to cut the tree more than sixty-five years 
before. The pathetic scene was long remembered and is 
mentioned in the history of the college. 

In 1774 Dartmouth possessed a library and a college 
hall, and other improvements were soon added. This 
year Ebenezer received a legacy of ;^53, 6s., 8d., from 
Nathaniel Smith, his maternal grandfather, and this no 
doubt assisted him to pay his college expenses. We 
find no record as to his standing among his classmates, 
but believe that he studied, as he did everything else, 
faithfully and well. The Indian students, however, were 
not agreeable companions. We read : " They interrupted 
our studies. They were still no longer than the school 
lasted, and all the rest of the time they were hollowing 
and making all manner of noise." 



DARTMOUTH college was dependent upon supplies 
from England, but in spite of this fact President 
Wheelock and the students sympathized heartily 
with the growing desire for independence on the part of 



^6 Mary Mattoon and 

the colonies. We do not know how many times Ebenezer 
Mattoon went home during his four college years, or how 
much he heard of the committee of correspondence 
appointed in Amherst, and of the preparations for war. 
The Rev. David Parsons may have attempted to instill 
his Tory doctrines into the boy's mind while teaching 
him Latin and Greek. That he completely failed in this 
is proved by the fact that when young Ebenezer did 
come home, in April, 1775, and the news came of the 
Lexington alarm, he hastened to enlist as a private in 
Captain Dickinson's company, and spent part of his 
vacation in Cambridge with the soldiers. Those were 
exciting times for the ardent young patriot, who, though 
not engaged in any battles, yet lived for a month in an 
atmosphere of war. Lieutenant Noah Dickinson, father 
of Mary, also led a company to Cambridge at the time 
of the alarm. Though the minute-men were soon dis- 
banded, many of them returned home only to enlist for a 
longer time. Ebenezer, the father, went with Captain 
Dickinson to Lexington, and was gone eleven days. 
Another company commanded by Captain Reuben Dick- 
inson is said to have been in the battle of Bunker Hill, 
though not in the intrenchments. We wonder that after 
having had a taste of army life, our college boy returned 
at all to Dartmouth, and we honor the determination 
which led him back into those northern woods to finish 
his course. 



Her Hero of the Revolution j/ 

An old resident of Amherst remembers hearing Gen- 
eral Mattoon, in the last years of his life, say : " They tell 
me that the days of the Revolution tried men's souls, but I 
say that they tried the souls of women also." The truth 
of this became apparent even in the beginning of the 
conflict. The peaceful life in Amherst homes was now at 
an end, and all the best and bravest men were hurrying to 
Boston. Upon the boys and women devolved the support 
of the families left behind. When we consider the hard 
work required to carry on a household in those primitive 
times, we feel increased respect for the heroic women who 
toiled in the fields with the cattle, that the men might 
fight for the freedom of the land. It is probable that 
Ebenezer Mattoon renewed his acquaintance with Mary 
Dickinson during that summer of 1775, but of this we 
know nothing. He returned to college, and continued 
his studies until the spring of 1776, his senioryear. We 
read Mattoon's own words as follows : 

" In the spring of '76, after examination for degrees, 
I obtained permission of the faculty to go to Canada and 
engage in the Revolutionary Army, receiving a promise 
that our degrees should be regularly conferred. Soon 
after my arrival in Canada, I received a lieutenant's com- 
mission and performed the duties of an adjutant for that 
year. The next year I was lieutenant in the artillery in 
the northern campaign, and was in St. Clair's retreat from 
Ticonderoga and in the hard-fought battles and capture 
of Burgoyne. Continuing in the army I was in the battle 
fought by General Sullivan on Rhode Island." 



J 8 Mary Mat to on and 

This outline of his three years service as an officer in 
the Revolution is supplemented by the details of his 
application for a pension, which he made in 1830, when, 
seventy-six years old, for about thirteen years he had been 
totally blind. This application tells us that he served but 
four months as a private, and that at the close of the 
campaign he returned to Ticonderoga, where he was dis- 
charged. After he came home he was chosen lieutenant 
in the state militia. He enlisted again in the army April 
I, 1777, as lieutenant, and after the retreat of General 
St. Clair, of which he speaks, he was detached into Cap- 
tain Furnald's company of artillery, where he served dur- 
ing the rest of the campaign. He returned to Amherst 
Jan. I, 1778, after Burgoyne's capture. In April, 1778, 
he again enlisted as lieutenant, and with forty men 
marched to Providence, where he joined Captain Lamb's 
Company, of Colonel Wade's regiment. He continued 
with that division until discharged in January, 1779. 
One month in Cambridge and four months in Canada as 
a private soldier, two years and three months as a lieu- 
tenant in 1776, 1777 and 1778, is the record of his ser- 
vice. His commission as adjutant was signed by Lieu- 
tenant Colonel Wait. His other commissions, all of 
which are lost, were granted by the state and were signed 
by the council. 

Ebenezer Mattoon came home to Amherst in January, 
1779, a veteran of the Revolution at the age of twenty- 



Her Hero of the Revolution jp 

three. He told the story of the battle of Saratoga with 
the authority of one who knew whereof he spoke, and 
he settled once for all the disputed point as to who killed 
General Frazier, The names of General Lincoln and 
Benedict Arnold were often on his lips. The diploma 
granted by Dartmouth would ordinarily have caused its 
owner to be respected as a college graduate, but the 
importance of this was entirely overshadowed by the lieu- 
tenant's commission which the young soldier bore, and 
by the glory of his achievements in the northern cam- 
paign. Many Amherst men had been in the war, and 
many were still fighting, but none so young had made so 
brillant a record. The story of the surrender of Burgoyne, 
as witnessed by Lieutenant Mattoon, was many times 
repeated by the youthful officer. His account of the 
battle may be found in the Hartford Coicra?it, of Jan. ii, 
1836. As long as he lived. General Mattoon took delight 
in repeating the fact that, obeying orders from General 
Gates, he rode from Amherst to Springfield on a Sunday, 
and conveyed several cannon from the arsenal to where 
they did good service on the battle-field of Saratoga. He 
returned to Amherst not only covered with glory, but 
bearing on his face some indications of small-pox, an 
unseen enemy met and conquered amid the rigors of a 
Canadian winter. 

After the capture of Burgoyne, the Americans replaced 
their old-fashioned cannon with the modern guns taken 



^o Mary Mattoon and 

from the enemy, and the former were given to officers in 
the army. An old iron field-piece, a six pounder, fell to 
the share of Lieutenant Mattoon, who brought it home 
as a souvenir. These cannon, furnished in early days to 
the colonists by England, had done good service in the 
French and Indian war. It is quite possible that this 
venerable relic, so long the chief feature of Fourth-of-July 
celebrations in East Street, in ages past may have per- 
formed its part in winning some of England's famous 
victories. 

Lieutenant Ebenezer Mattoon, in his worn continental 
uniform, bringing home the historic cannon as a relic for 
the town, received a hearty welcome from his neighbors 
and friends. To the boys crowding about he told how 
his squad was encamped on one side of a small stream, 
and his men watched the British on the other side cook- 
ing their evening meal in a kettle over the camp fire. A 
gun was fired at the kettle, sending its contents flying in 
every direction, thus giving the redcoats a surprise. 
Again, near Saratoga, he found himself with a small party 
greatly outnumbered by the enemy. Instead of surren- 
dering at their command, he ordered his only gun fired 
thirteen times in succession, and thus cut his way through 
to safety. Many stories like these he delighted to tell in 
after years, and persons are living to-day who remember 
how his eyes would twinkle, and how he would shake 
with laughter, as he described his youthful antics. 



^ o 
I ^ 

.a 




Her Hero of the Revolution 41 

About the time of his discharge, some artist painted a 
miniature of the young lieutenant in uniform. The 
picture is owned to-day by his great-granddaughter, Mrs. 
Edith Wolcott Davis. It came to her through her motlier, 
Mrs. Wolcott, who had received it from her mother, Mary 
Mattoon Dwight, the daughter of the General, who lived 
with him for many years in East Amherst. The copy of 
the picture shows us the young soldier as he appeared 
about 1779, at the most interesting time, when, as he 
says, he "left the army, returned to Amherst, and was 
married to Mary Dickinson." 



VI. 



THE Rev. David Parsons had become so bitter a 
Tory that we are not surprised to find no record 
of the marriage in his handwriting. The ardent 
young patriot would hardly go to him for such a service. 
The ceremony may have been performed by a magistrate 
as was customary. It may be that Mary Dickinson put 
on her poke-bonnet, mounted her Narragansett pacer, 
and rode over to Hadley or Northampton, there to become 
Mary Mattoon. Her husband paid 6s. as the wedding 
fee. We know that the marriage was July 8, 1779. 
The bride's heart must have swelled with pride, as she 



42 Mary Mattooii a7id 

realized that her hero had not forgotten her through all 
the vicissitudes of college and army life, and had come 
back to make her his wife, and to settle down upon an 
Amherst farm. She was at this time twenty-one and he 
was twenty-four. Her grandchildren remember her in 
middle life as tall and straight and slim, with large blue 
eyes and jet black hair. From this we can imagine how 
the bride appeared upon her wedding day. 

Members of the family believe that on the occasion of 
her marriage Noah Dickinson gave his daughter the East 
Street farm. This may be possible, though no deed of 
gift can be found. Whether, if this be true, the house 
in which she and her husband afterward lived was then 
standing, and the young couple took up their abode there 
at once, we cannot determine. It is probable that 
they found somewhere a temporary home, and that the 
bridegroom built the mansion which, with its wide spread- 
ing wings on either side, was for many years the most 
pretentious house in town. Here for the remainder of 
her life Mary Mattoon devoted herself to her husband 
and his interests, in her quiet, unobtrusive way, furnish- 
ing the foundation upon which rested his social and 
political success. She was the power within the home, a 
type of the New England matron of the olden time, 
whose descendants rise up and call her blessed. 

We find that Ebenezer Mattoon had a license as a 
" retailer," so he may have assisted Oliver Clapp in his 



Her Hero of the Revolution 4J- 

tavern. He was a member of a committee to lay out 
highways, and travelled about old Hampshire County 
choosing locations for the roads which now connect the 
valley towns and over many of which we hear the whizz, 
of trolley cars. Our soldier farmer was also a school 
teacher. About 1862 his granddaughter, Mrs. Wolcott, 
was visiting in Goshen, and there met a very old man^ 
who had been in his boyhood a pupil of General Mattoon. 
He told her that as a master the General thoroughly 
commanded the respect of his pupils and was very popu- 
lar with them, entering into their sports, and showing 
much ingenuity in suggesting new games. When play- 
time ended he was again the teacher. As he was obeyed 
by his soldiers so was he by the boys in the district 
school. Wherever we find him he appears as a leader,. 
whom many were ready to follow. 

The square white house embowered in trees, now the 
home of its owner, Olney P. Gaylord, presented a very 
different appearance when Mary Mattoon presided within 
its precincts. The year after her marriage her husband 
had been called to represent the town in the General 
Court, and in 1782 he was made a Justice of the Peace. 
This office he held until 1796. From the rank of Cap- 
tain he had risen to be Major, Colonel, Brigadier-General 
and Major-General of the 4th Division Militia of the 
Commonwealth. Many unexpected honors had been 
bestowed upon him. In 1792 he had been a member of 



44 Mary Mat to on and 

the electoral college for the re-election of Washington, 
and in 1796 he had assisted in the election of Adams. 
This same year he was appointed Sheriff of old Hampshire 
County, which then included nearly the whole of Western 
Massachusetts. 

Thus, seventeen years after her marriage, we find our 
heroine the wife of the most distinguished man in 
Amherst, and mistress of a mansion second to none in 
size and elegance of furniture and adornment. The 
maples planted by the bridegroom shaded the portico 
from the western sun. Commodious parlors situated on 
either side of the square front hall accommodated the 
family and the transient guests. In the center of the 
house was the great stone chimney, with capacious fire- 
places, which devoured great logs of oak and maple and 
ever yawned for more. The common living room, which 
extended nearly the length of the house, was also the 
workroom in which the spinning-wheel of the mistress 
sang its daily song, and in the convenient kitchen at the 
back of the house the deep brick oven sent forth the 
products of her skill. The porch in the rear commanded 
a view of Pelham hills. 

On each side of the house was built a wing, each con- 
taining a single room, that on the south being used for a 
parlor, while the one on the north served as a dining 
room. Each of these state apartments required about 
fifty yards of carpet to cover its floor. Of the method of 



Her Hero of the Revohtiion ^5 

making carpets by sewing together and then weaving 
strips of new woollen cloth left from the men's clothing, 
a former resident of old Hadley writes : " The older girls 
assisted in spinning the warp .... Mother com- 
menced to color the yarn green, red, blue, yellow and 
some black, for the beauty of the carpet depended upon 
the yarn, as the cloth which we cut and sewed together 
only served for filling." " Mother " would then arrange 
the threads in the " harness and reed," in such a manner 
•' that all the colors were thrown on the top and made a 
very handsome stripe." So possibly the carpets in the 
state dining room and parlor of the Mattoon house were 
made by " mother " and "the girls," though they may 
have been brought from abroad. 

Mrs. Bardwell, great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Mat- 
toon who married Oliver Clapp, writes thus concerning 
the old house : 

" I think there was no home in western Massachusetts 
conducted with more style than General Mattoon's pre- 
vious to the time when he lost his eyesight. I well remem- 
ber the old dining room with its carved woodwork, and 
its large sideboard on which always stood two decanters 
with their glasses, well filled according to the customs 
of those days." The sideboard mentioned may now be 
seen in the home of Joseph M. Kellogg. 

Opening from the dining room were wine closets with 
loaded shelves, which contributed to the sideboard when 



^6 Mary Mattoon and 

occasion required. A china closet near at hand contained 
the quaint tea set now owned by Mrs. Lane, and other 
valuable dishes. Thirty-six dining chairs stood ready 
for the guests, and three dozen knives and forks and 
plates, with fourteen silver teaspoons and six tablespoons, 
proved Mistress Mattoon to have been well provided with 
luxurious table furnishings. In the house were five " fall 
leaf tables " and nine looking-glasses, and some of these 
may have been in the dining room. There is no doubt 
but that the "6 Decanters, 12 wine glasses and i demi- 
jon " of which we have record, were in the wine closet 
ready for instant use. 

At one end of the state parlor, separated from each 
other by a window, were hung two large and expensive 
mirrors in gilt frames. This room contained one " sopha," 
and chairs with long legs and stuffed seats. One of these, 
together with a card table and a chest for linen, is owned 
by Miss Conkey of Amherst. Upon the wall hung two 
pictures, a " Washington family Picture," and " The death 
of Gen. Wolf." Some of the " 4 pr brass hand Irons " 
in the house may have been in the fire-place, and possibly 
the " 50 vol of books" owned by the General were in a 
bookcase on the wall. Three card tables stood ready for 
the evening game of whist. 

The seventeen years that had passed since Ebenezer 
Mattoon married Mary Dickinson brought to their home 
tsix children, two of whom died in their infancy. In the 



Her Hero of the RevoliLtioii ^7 

West cemetery we find two little graves with these 
inscriptions : 

" In memory of Fanny E. daughter of Ebenezer Mat- 
toon, Jr. and Mrs. Mary Mattoon who died January ye 
28, An Don 1790, in the 2nd year of her age :" 

" In memory of Fanny Mattoon 2nd, daughter of Eben- 
ezer Mattoon Jr. Esq. and M. C. and Mary Mattoon, who 
died Sep ye i, 1792, in the 3rd year of her age." 

The eldest daughter, Mary Dickinson, born April 4, 

1780, was but eighteen months old when September 29, 

1 78 1, Ebenezer, 3d., appeared upon the scene. Two 
more years elapsed, and Noah Dickinson, named from the 
grandfather, was added to the little family, and two more 
years brought Dorothy Smith, the namesake of the wife of 
Dr. Nathaniel Smith. If little "Fanny" and "Fanny 
2nd " had not died, there would have been living six chil- 
dren under ten years of age. 

We know that the death of these two babies brought 
deepest sorrow to the mother's heart. We can imagine 
that her time was fully occupied during these first few 
years, and that she had ample opportunity to put into 
practice all the lessons in housewifery which she had 
learned before her marriage. Her husband, though in 
comfortable circumstances, was not rich. It is said that 
he was a successful farmer, but it is hard to see what 
time he had to be a farmer at all. He bought of Noah 
Dickinson fifty additional acres of land, and straightway 
accepted numerous public offices which called him off to 



48 Mary Mattoon and 

Boston. He seemed to feel quite sure that the mistress 
at home would run the farm, pay the hired help, and 
look after all the children, and protect his interests. 
His confidence was not misplaced, for Mary did all 
this and more. Wolves were common in Amherst as 
late as 1787, but Ebenezer's sheep were not molested. 
Crows and blackbirds were a nuisance to the farmer, but 
Ebenezer's corn was not pulled up. The master was 
doubtless abroad on public business when the bear was 
killed in Hadley and drawn through the streets on a load 
of corn, but the mistress was in charge at home, and no 
bear, real or imaginary, disturbed the family or farm of 
Ebenezer Mattoon, Jr.,- Esq. and M. C. Five years before, 
in 1 79 1, Mary had lost the mother who had been her 
close companion during her girlhood. Ten months later 
her father had married " Seusanah " Ward, and now in 
1796 she had a little half-brother, Jonathan. Thus 
changes had taken place in her immediate family, while 
other important events were occurring throughout the 
town. 



VH. 



UNTIL the death of Rev. David Parsons, the Tory 
minister, those who had won the battles in the 
Revolution had listened with what patience they 
could to his preaching. When he died, and it was found 




'■H 



FIRST MEETING HOUSE, EAST STREET. 

Fro}n History of Amherst^ Mass. 



Her Hero of the RevolMtion ^g 

that many in the church favored the settlement over the 
church of his son David Parsons, as rank a Tory as him- 
self, Ebenezer Mattoon felt that this could not be allowed. 
He invited those who sympathized with him in this feel- 
ing to meet in his East Street home to discuss the matter. 
Nov. 12, 1782, twenty-two "aggrieved brethren," known 
as " Captain Mattoon's Council," met and organized the 
Second Church of Amherst. Ebenezer Mattoon was 
clerk and treasurer for the first year. A special commit- 
tee measured from every man's door to find the center of 
the parish, decided on a spot about in the middle of the 
common, southeast of where the present church stands, 
and provided a barrel of rum and other refreshments for 
the raising. November, 1783, the meeting-house was 
finished. The first religious service was held Feb. 15, 
1784, and the next year Rev. Ichabod Draper became the 
pastor. Obedient doubtless to the wish of her husband, 
Aug. 28, 1785, Mary Mattoon marshalled her little flock, 
Mary and Ebenezer, Noah Dickinson and Dorothy Smith, 
over to the church, and there together they were baptized. 
The baby Dorothy was at this time but two months old. 
There were now five taverns and eight rum sellers in 
Amherst and it would seem that two churches were none 
too many. 

Until disabled by age and infirmity Ebenezer Mattoon 
never failed to serve the church which he had founded. 
As parish committee year after year he kept the parson 
4 



JO Mary Maitoon and 

from freezing by carrying out the directions of the town 
fathers regarding his wood. In 1809 he was the moder- 
ator of the meeting which voted "that it is of the opinion 
of this parish that the Rev. Mr. Draper's Infirmities are 
such as to render him in a great measure Incapable of 
performing his ministerial Duties." He also acted as 
chairman of the committee which waited on Mr. Draper 
to inform him of this vote, with instructions that they 
would pay him salary and wood for a stated time, if he 
would leave at once. On almost every page of the old 
record books the name of Ebenezer Mattoon appears. 
In 1801 he was a member of the " Comity " to examine 
the old " meating-house " with a view to repairs, and again 
in 1806 he presided when the question " to see if the 
parish will repair the meating-house by painting it over 
again " was discussed. It was not his fault that this was 
" negatived." He assisted when they raised the sum of 
^30 for "Musick," and also when the church bought a 
bass viol and "mended the same." In fact he followed 
in his father's footsteps, and though not a deacon, he v/as 
truly a pillar in the church. 

Hard times followed the Revolution. The state, being 
bankrupt, was compelled to raise money by taxing the 
towns, v.hich were unable to respond to such demands. 
Every one was in debt, lawsuits abounded, and lawyers 
flourished. Mobs gathered in the towns and prevented 
the sitting of the courts, and a party of men from Amherst 



Her Hero of the Revolution 5/ 

assisted in one such riot in Northampton. Daniel Shays, 
a Revolutionary officer, organized a rebellion, and many 
Amherst men enrolled under his banner. Next door to 
the home of Mary Mattoon stood the old Clapp tavern, 
once the place of entertainment of some of Burgoyne's 
officers, who were prisoners on their way to Boston. In 
this tavern gathered the conspirators against the newly 
formed government. We are not surprised that Ebenezer 
Mattoon, now Justice of the Peace, stood firm against the 
rebels, although his brother-in-law, Oliver Clapp, was 
secretly a friend of Shays. 

These were exciting days in Amherst and the adjoining 
hamlet of Pelham. There, in the old Conkey tavern, 
the rebellion was planned, and in the open space before 
its door Daniel Shays drilled his men in the manual of 
arms. Ebenezer Mattoon served with the Amherst com- 
pany which defended the arsenal in Springfield, and 
stood by the side of General Shepard on that occasion, 
though many of his lifelong friends were among the insur- 
gents. After the insurrection v/as subdued he was one of 
the justices before whom appeared over a hundred 
Amherst citizens to take the oath of allegiance. Together 
with other notorious rebels Henry McCulloch of Pelham, 
a boyhood friend of Ebenezer Mattoon, was tried for high 
treason. In early life a compact of mutual assistance in 
case of need had been made between the two men. Now 
General Mattoon wrote to Lieutenant Governor Gushing 



^2 Mary Mattoon and 

to this effect : " I have suffered much in person and prop- 
erty by these people. I have been obHged to remove my 
family to a neighboring town for shelter. Notwithstand- 
ing all this, I must beg for McCulloch. I cannot express 
my feelings on this subject, but am sure McCulloch is 
not the person to make an example of." The petition pre- 
vailed, but not, it is said, until a rope was put about the 
prisoner's neck on the scaffold. McCulloch was ruined, 
and for many years trudged over Pelham hills to the 
Mattoon home with a bag upon his shoulder, returning 
loaded with provisions for himself and his family. Eben- 
ezer Mattoon was constant in friendship. We are glad to 
learn that Mary and the children were removed to a 
neighboring town for shelter. The insurgents did much 
damage on their march and the pursuing army found that 
most of the Amherst men had followed the rebels to Pel- 
ham, leaving the women and children unprotected. To 
which " neighboring town " Mary Mattoon was removed, 
and how she ever managed upon her return to reconstruct 
her household, we can but imagine. 

There is no record as to the part which Amherst women 
played in Shays' rebellion. No doubt a war of words 
expressed the feelings of those connected v^^ith the con- 
tending parties. Mary Mattoon, not being " much of a 
talker" probably thought much of these matters, and 
said little. Her father being impetuous and very patri- 
otic, was prevented by his wife from shooting Daniel 



Her Hero of the Revolution 5J 

Shays as he passed the house. The daughter, sympa- 
thizing with both husband and father, went about her 
daily toil, and pondered these things in her heart. Her 
talents as a manager were more and more called into 
action and her strength of character developed as time 
went on. 

The record of Ebenezer Mattoon's public service shows 
him to have been called to many offices which required 
good judgment and a knowledge of affairs. In 1779 he 
was a member of the committee appointed to build the 
new jail in Northampton, and 1801 found him consider- 
ing plans for a new court house. The heart of Mary 
Mattoon again swelled with pride when, in 1801, 
her hero was elected to Congress by a large majority. 
This was indeed an honor ! His wife, being manager and 
representative at home, could not accompany him to Wash- 
ington, but she could minister to his welfare by training 
his boys and girls, by conducting the affairs of her 
household in a manner befitting the wdfe of so great a 
man, and by looking sharply after the industries carried 
on upon the farm. Meantime the Amherst member in 
Congress, being an old school Federalist, followed the 
dictates of his conscience, and in the Jefferson campaign 
threw his influence in favor of Aaron Burr, whom he con- 
sidered to be the better man. 

Her great-grandson, Ithamar Cowles, says of Mary 
Mattoon : " My grandmother was a person of great firm- 



5^ Mary Mattooji and 

ness of character and had a deal of independence for a 
woman of those times." The truth of this statement is 
illustrated by an anecdote concerning her, told by Justus 
Dwight to his daughter, who is still living. 

" When Major Mattoon was gone to the war, his wife 
being alone with her children, heard some one in the 
room overhead. She immediately caught up a broom 
and went to see who was the intruder. She found a 
strange man and ordered him to get out of the house. 
Overawed, he said, ' You will let me go dov;n and out of 
the door, won't you ?' With a flourish of her broom, she 
exclaimed, ' No, you vnW go out the same way you came 
in.' " The war mentioned was probably the Shay's 
Rebellion. 

It is fortunate that the wife of General Mattoon was 
possessed of those qualities which enabled her to manage 
alike both farm and household during the absence of the 
master, who for twenty years performed the duties of High 
Sheriff of old Hampshire County. This was the largest 
county in the state, extending from Vermont to Connecti- 
cut, including Hampshire, Hampden and Franklin of 
to-day. There were no deputies at first, and the office of 
High Sheriff, though a position of honor and emolument, 
yet involved much responsibility and prolonged absence 
from home. Sometimes the Sheriff rode a hundred miles 
a day over the hills of Western Massachusetts. 

Mary's courageous heart must have rejoiced to see him 



Her Hero of the Revolution ^^ 

come down the road on horseback after one of these 
lonely journeys. He wore a sword and a miUtary hat 
with a cUister of ostrich-feathers. This hat, minus the 
feathers, has been presented to the Mary Mattoon Chap- 
ter, and is one of the greatest treasures in its rooms. 

Thougli a man of war, the General had a loving, tender 
heart. In 1806 two murderers, Halligan and Daly, were 
sentenced to death. The High Sheriff by virtue of his 
office, was obliged to officiate at the execution. The 
night before, he walked the floor in his East Street home 
in great distress of mind. A neighbor, seeing his trouble? 
offered to do the business for him for five dollars. The 
General indignantly exclaimed, "Would you take a man's 
life for five dollars ?" He is also said to have remarked : 
" I will never give a thing which it is my duty to do to 
any one else to do for me." Strict integrity, devotion to 
duty, power of self-command in his command over others, 
joined to a sympathetic nature which shrank from giving 
pain to the smallest creature, were the qualities which 
characterized the hero of Mary Mattoon. 

The execution proceeded. A great crowd gathered. 
Accompanied by his mounted aids, with pistols in hol- 
sters, in all the bravery of sword and uniform and 
"chapeau bras," Sheriff Mattoon rode to Northampton on 
his finest horse, and performed his difficult duty. With 
prudent forethought he had stationed an armed squad of 
soldiers to guard against a rescue, and this danger was 



^6 Mary Mattoon and 

averted. Imposing indeed was the appearance of the 
High Sheriff as he passed along the road ! Zebina 
Montague tells us : " For many years his name was used 
by fond mamas, who said to refractory children, ' Behave, 
or I will send for General Mattoon.' " Yet we imagine 
that this stern and conscientious administrator of justice, 
after the law was vindicated, unnerved by what he had 
felt to be a terrible task, went home for comfort, and 
that she whose heart had followed him through the day 
did not fail him in this extremity. 

Mary Mattoon must have taken her father-in-law into 
her home, after the death of his wife in 1803. A histo- 
rian says of General Mattoon: "The writer was at his 
house when it was the home of three Ebenezer Mattoons, 
his father, himself and grandson, and Feb. 19, 1814, the 
birth of a great-grandson made the fourth of the same 
name in direct succession." This great-grandson was the 
son of Mary, the General's eldest daughter, who married 
Daniel Dwight. In April, 1806, the old man Ebenezer 
died. Having previously given them their portion, at 
his death he left to each of his five daughters five shillings 
(eight3^-three cents), and to his son Ebenezer he gave the 
remainder of his personal property, including twenty-five 
acres of land in East Street, and also land in Pelham. 
This brought more means with which to pay the family 
expenses, but with it came more responsibility. 

About this time an artist of great skill painted the por- 




SWORD PRESENTED TO EBENEZER MATTOON WHEN HE WAS 

ADJUTANT GENERAL. FURNITURE FORMERLY IN 

THE MATTOON HOUSE, EAST AMHERST. 



Owned by Ithaviar C. Cowlcs. 



Her Hero of the Revolution 57 

traits of the master and mistress as they appeared in their 
East Street home. Who this painter was we do not 
know. The General is dressed as a private citizen, and 
his mild and pleasant face does not even suggest the 
fierce High Sheriff, used as a bugbear to frighten children. 
This picture of Mary Mattoon is the only one known to 
have been made. The original oil paintings are owned 
by the General's great-granddaughter, Mrs. Mary Mattoon 
Clapp, granddaughter of Daniel Dwight. 

Here we see the mistress of the East Street mansion as 
we have imagined her. Early in life she donned the tall 
white cap, as was the custom of matrons of that day. 
Her face, though placid, is cast in an heroic mould, and 
its lines bear witness to the strenuous life which she had 
led. We do not readily forget the steadfast gaze of those 
" large, beautiful, dark blue eyes " which look out from 
the picture as they did at Ebenezer Mattoon, winning his 
impressionable heart and holding it true during fifty-six 
years of married life. Our heroine appears, a stately 
figure in her short-waisted black silk gown and white 
kerchief, a typical New England dame of the olden time. 

Thus, doubtless, was Mary Mattoon at the wed- 
ding when, in 1807, her daughter Mary married Daniel 
Dwight, with whom she went to live in Westmoreland, 
N. H. Her son Ebenezer, in 1804, had married Lucina 
Mayo. Noah Dickinson, the youngest boy, had followed 
in his father's footsteps. He entered Dartmouth at sev- 



§8 Mary Mattooii ajtd 

enteen, graduated with honor in 1803, married Lucy Bil- 
lings and began to practice law in Amherst. Now Mary- 
was to leave her home and go into the northern wilder- 
ness. The capacious dining room and parlor in the East 
Street house were well suited to accommodate wedding 
guests, and there the marriage was probably held. 

We know that many servants were required to carry on 
the work of so large an establishment as that of Mistress 
Mary Mattoon. Two of her servants Mrs. Bardwell has 
described for us: " Jeptha Pharaoh, father of the late 
William Pharaoh, was valet or body guard for the General, 
and very proud was he of his uniform. His wife Peggy 
was an assistant to Mrs. Mattoon. She spun her linen, 
and helped in various ways in household duties. I have 
now a knot of flax which she prepared ready for the 
distaff of Mrs. Mattoon, who was a notable housewife^ 
well filling Solomon's ideal of a virtuous woman. Peggy 
was a descendant of an Indian chieftain, and alas, loved 
the contents of the decanters too well ! When her 
appetite was gratified she was very happy. She would 
then announce herself as ''Margaret Sashwampee Pharaoh, 
an Indian Chief's daughter." 

We like to think that old Jeptha waited upon the guests 
at Mary's wedding, and that Peggy was " very happy " 
without the aid of the decanters. The knot of flax men- 
tioned is now the property of the Mary Mattoon Chapter, 
the sole article in its possession known to have belonged 
to the chapter heroine. 



Her Hero of the Revolution §g 

For many years General Mattoon was the most popular 
militia officer in Western Massachusetts. The boys of 
that day thought him tall. A printed record says : " He 
was below medium height, compactly built, straight as an 
arrow, and when mounted on one of his fine horses made 
a splendid appearance." His home was constantly filled 
with visitors. Distinguished men from Boston, members 
of the Legislature, and even the Governor were his 
guests. Sometimes his friends took the family by sur- 
prise, and the mistress was always expected to be ready. 
One legislator, thinking that the country so far from Bos- 
ton must be a v/ilderness, asked if he should take his 
gun, but upon arriving at the Mattoon homestead he was 
overcome with mortification to see the style and elegance 
with which he was entertained by the dignified host and 
hostess. A party of officials planned an unexpected 
visit. Learning this by chance, the General sent men to 
hunt on the mountain, and Mary taxed herself and the 
servants to the utmost to get up a fine dinner. The 
guests expressed astonishment, at Vv^hich the General 
replied, with a twinkle in his eye, that he hoped next 
time they would let him know they were coming, that he 
might make fit preparation. General Mattoon was full 
of fun and jollity, and loved young people, and Mary 
loved to see him happy. Therefore a bevy of attractive 
young ladies, nieces and other relatives, and friends of 
Dorothy before her marriage, frequented the East Street 
home, and all were welcome. 



6o Mary Mattoon and 

Woman's work in Amherst was somewhat easier now. 
Levi Dickinson in Hadle}^ had initiated the industry of 
making brooms from broom corn instead of from birch 
twigs, and sweeping had become a less difficult task. A 
carding machine had been set up in North Amherst, and 
there was also one in Pelham. To the latter for many 
years General Mattoon carried his wool. The people of 
the town had more advantages than heretofore. The 
first public library had been established, and was kept in 
a case six feet high and five feet wide at Deacon David 
Moody's in South Amherst. The farmers, too, were 
doing wonders. A squash was grown in Amherst measur- 
ing " ly^- inches, \\ inches from the small end." The 
vine bore "rising of loo squashes." 



VIII. 

IN 1811 we read in the Hampshire Gazette of a great 
comet which was believed to presage war. The 
prophecy proved true. July 3, 1812, General Mattoon 
was ordered to see that the entire western division under 
his command was thoroughly trained and equipped for 
instant action in time of need, "to defend their country 
and their constitutional rights, and those liberties which 



Her Hero of the Revolution 6i 

at the expense of so much blood and treasure were pur- 
chased in the late Revolution." The General did not 
believe in this war. He was a delegate to the Convention 
which met in Northampton, and presented a memorial to 
the president praying that Commissioners might be 
appointed to negotiate peace. Nevertheless, when war 
was declared, the Major General was ready and his 
Brigade Major, Noah D. Mattoon, was also ready. 

The General sent out orders and appointed days for 
inspection and for general training to be held in the usual 
place, " Below the West Parish meeting House, between 
said meeting House and the brook." There was no 
danger that these orders would not be obeyed, for Gen- 
eral Mattoon as a tactician and disciplinarian was the 
most remarkable military commander in the state. A 
subaltern in his division said: "He was a perfect Napo- 
leon in his way, and woe be to the officer or soldier who 
came on parade with his uniform tattered or soiled, or 
whose conduct in the line was in any way unsoldierly." 
A surgeon in one of his regiments remarked to Zebina 
Montague: "Why, sir, he would take a company of raw 
w^ool hat boys from Pelham Hills or Shutesbury, and by 
drilling them an hour or two behind a drum and fife on old 
Hadley common, he would put the very devil in them." 

The General said of himself: "I studied no profession 
except that of arms." How thoroughly he mastered this, 
his sole " profession," is shown by the closing para- 



62 Mary Mat to on and 

^raph of a general order which he issued during the 
war of 1812 : 

'' In passing down the orders of his excellency the 
Commander-in-Chief, the Major General directs that they 
be communicated to every company, and that they be 
carefully preserved by every officer and soldier in the 
division. The crisis is all important to our country and 
demands the attention of every individual in the commu- 
nity. Let every officer and soldier do his duty : forbear 
the use of irritating language : let party dissention have 
no continuance in the Militia. Division is destruction, 
union is our salvation. Let due subordination be cher- 
ished by every grade throughout our ranks and every 
officer and soldier be prompt to carry the general order 
into full effect." 

One company, that of Captain Chester Williams of 
Amherst, consisted of captain, lieutenant, ensign, six 
sergeants and musicians, three corporals and sixty-three 
privates. Each soldier was to be provided with musket, 
bayonet, cartridge-box, iron rod, sca.bbard and belt, flints, 
wires and brushes, knapsacks, cartridges and balls. 

The Americans had rushed unprepared into war, and 
their project of invading Canada was unsuccessful. 
Rumors prevailed that the British might descend on Bos- 
ton. June 22, 18 1 2, General Mattoon was ordered to 
detach 445 men from the fourth division, who should hold 
themselves in readiness to march at a moment's warning. 
Reviews were frequent and the vigilance of the Major 
•General was untiring. The troops were drilled and 



Her Hero of the Revolution 6j 

reviewed and paraded below the west parish meeting- 
house. Artillery for Commodore Perry's fleet on Lake 
Erie passed through Amherst over the old Bay road. 
Loomis Merrick remembers hearing his grandfather, James 
Merrick, tell of seeing one cannon drawn along that 
road by seventeen horses. In September, 1814, an 
urgent call came for a force to repel the British, who had 
invaded Massachusetts. General Mattoon detached six- 
teen companies from the fourth division for the defence 
of Boston. But after all, there was no fighting, and the 
few Amherst men returned safely to their homes. 

During these two years the Major General deeply felt 
the responsibility devolving upon him. That he was 
equal to the emergency is proved by the fact that in 181 6, 
resigning his commission as Major General, he received 
and accepted from Governor John Brooks the appoint- 
ment as Adjutant General. This placed General Mattoon 
second in command of all the militia in the state. The 
sword presented to him at this time, and also certain 
articles of his furniture, are owned by IthamarC. Cowles, 
his great-grandson. Mr. Cowles says : " They say that 
General Washington has played many a game of whist on 
that table." 



64 Mary Mattoo7i and 



IX. 



ENERAL Mattoon had now become a very wealthy 
man. He owned large tracts of land in North and 
East Amherst, in Leverett and in Pelham. He was 
successful in every undertaking and was greatly admired 
and respected by the townspeople. Pacific Lodge of 
Masons, which he had joined soon after it was organized, 
in 18 1 7 elected him its master. He owned an interest in 
manufacturing enterprises and his advice in business 
matters was considered of much value. There are those 
living in Amherst to-day who, when little children, rode 
with him in his fine coach with its liveried coachman, and 
who remember well the deference paid to the great man 
by his fellow townsmen. He made many journeys to 
Boston, travelling by the " Fast Mail coach," and this 
same conveyance brought many distinguished guests to 
his hospitable mansion. 

By this time the youngest daughter, Dorothy, had 
married Dr. Timothy Gridley, who, though living in town, 
had taken her away from home, and Mary Mattoon was 
left alone. We hope she now led an easier life and 
could enjoy some leisure moments. Her grandson, Isaac 
Gridley, says : " In the early part of the last century she 
led the singing in the church and was a very efficient 
churchworker." This statement suggests that her imme- 




orry\^ 







Coj^y of portrait in the possession of William Mattoon King. 



Her Hero of the Revolution 6^ 

diate home duties did not occupy all her time. Perhaps 
she may have belonged to the " Female Cent Society," 
which at that time flourished in East Street. With no 
daughter to assist, this woman who was " not much of a 
talker," as she grew older, must have found it hard to 
entertain so many guests. Her father now had passed 
away. In old West cemetery we find the inscription : 

" Lieutenant Noah Dickinson died 

May 28th, 1815, aged 85. 
Mortals attend, for you must die, 

And sleep in dust as well as I, 
Repent in time your souls to save, 

There is no repentance in the grave." 

General Mattoon was interested in all young people 
and was specially fond of his young brother-in-law, 
Jonathan, whom he desired to send to college. The boy 
did go to Deerfield Academy to prepare, but his father, 
needing his help, went after him and brought him home 
" to shoot ducks." Noah Dickinson, like many others 
of that day, did not think an education necessary, and in 
this he agreed with the majority of his neighbors. 

We are glad to know that in the autumn of 18 16 the 
newly appointed Adjutant General of the state found time 
to take with his wife a journey to Westmoreland, N. H., 
to visit "Mary and the children." A letter, by General 
Mattoon, written to his son-in-law, Daniel Dwight, 
loaned by Mrs. Davis, tells us all we know about this 
5 



66 Mary Mattoon and 

visit. We can imagine how Mary Mattoon put on her 
green silk calash, and started out in the fall-back chaise 
on this journey, which, so far as we know, is the only 
one she ever enjoyed. The last sentence of this letter is 
of special interest, giving the General's idea of the state 
of things in Boston. 

Boston, Nov. iith, i8i6. 
My Dear Sir: 

I received yours of the 30th ult. by Mr. Kendall, 
and am very glad to know that you are all well. The 
day we left your house we arrived at mine, about dark : 
all stood it well, but Mrs. Mattoon. She was very much 
fatigued, but was much better next morning ; your Father 
and Mother are remarkably well, and felt much better for 
the journey. I left home on Monday the 4th, and arrived 
at Boston on the 5th through rain, and mud in abundance, 
but am in tolerable health now. The Saturday before I 
left home, Jos. Graves was hunting with Col. Stebbins — 
and by accident shot him, and wounded him very dan- 
gerously, several large shot remain in his back, you will 
hear the particulars probably before this reaches you. 

I have sent my horse and chaise to you by Mr. Ken- 
dall, altho. the price is high, yet I can do no better, and 
as you will be near him, you can see to him — and use 
him when you have occasion. I thought it would be 
better to have the horse and chaise together, for they may 
be sent either here or to Amherst in the Spring, with less 
trouble. 1 wish you to direct his hoofs greased, once or 
twice a week, for they are bad, — he was lame, but by 
greasing he is nearly well. 



Her Hero of the Revolution 6j 

Give my love to Mary and the children. I want to see 
them much more than before I visited you. 

No news here, all are eager for property, and inquiry 
respecting it bounds the conversation of most people, and 
information respecting it, if agreeable, satisfies their 
minds. 

I am. 

My Dear Sir, 

Yours affectionately, 

E. Mattoon. 

Another letter, now the property of Miss Conkey, writ- 
ten by General Mattoon from Boston to his son, Noah 
Dickinson, has the date so indistinct that we can only 
guess it to be 1817. These two letters mentioned are 
probably among the last which he wrote with his own 
hand. We see that even in the midst of the turmoil of 
public life, expecting a visit from President Monroe, the 
Adjutant General remembered to tell his son what kind 
of grain to '■'- sew," purchased a " quintall of fish " for the 
family, and picked out for Mary " 1 lb Hizin Tea, 8 lb 
H. S. Tea, 15 yards of Callico and 2 pair stockings." 
This thoughtfulness for his wife, even under such cir- 
cumstances, was never failing. 

Boston, Wednesday Evening, 10 o'clock, 
23RD April i8i7(?) 
My Deal' Dick: 

I have this moment returned from Medford and 
found Mr. E. Dickinson waiting for me. He gave me 
your letter with one from the Doctor. I am very glad to 



68 Mary Mattoon and 

learn that all are well : in regard to sewing, I would put 
as much rye and oats into the ground as you think you 
can find ground that will produce any considerable crop. 
As to Indian corn, I have very little expectation of its 
succeeding better this than last year. It looks dismal 
here, and the prospect very unfavorable at present. A 
kind Providence governs. We must depend upon that 
after doing our duty. If the season continues as cold as 
at present, I think we will have to experience such dis- 
tress as this country never witnessed. I have sent 
a quintal! of fish by Mr. Dickinson. I sent half a quin- 
tall by Mr. Dean with other things. I sent several things 
to your mama by Mr. Dickinson (to wit), i lb Hizin tea, 
81b H. S. Tea, 15 yards of Callico and 2 pair stockings. 
I wrote you by Dean and as it is late I must close. The 
certificate of the removal of an officer must be made by 
the Major General. 

We expect the President of the U. S. in Boston 27th 
of May. I have with some difficulty obtained leave of 
absence for a few days after the first of May. The coun- 
cil set on the 7 th, but I have urged so hard the necessity 
of my being at home for a few days, that I have suc- 
ceeded in obtaining leave of absence. 

Love to all — good night. 

Yours with affection, 

E. Mattoon. 

The year this letter was written there was given in 
Boston the most brilliant military exhibition that had 
ever been seen in that city. Cavalry, artillery and infantry 
occupied three sides of the common, all commanded by 
Brigadier General Welles. The line was reviewed by the 



Her Hero of the Revolution 6g 

Governor accompanied by Adjutant General Mattoon and 
other officers. A picture of the General in full uniform 
as he appeared that day hung for fifty years in the Bos- 
ton Museum. Mrs. Clapp says that this picture, of 
unknown authorship, was accidentally discovered by her 
mother, Mrs. Wolcott, granddaughter of the General. It 
was purchased and is now owned by his great-grandson, 
William Mattoon King, who has presented a photograph 
of the painting to the Mary Mattoon Chapter. 

For many years there was great jealousy between East 
Street and West Street, or the Center. The former could 
muster the larger number of votes, and possessed General 
Mattoon and the old cannon, and went by the name of 
Sodom. The Center was called Mt. Zion, and boasted 
of its academy and afterward of its college, and was 
proud to number Noah Webster among its citizens. The 
statement, " Large bushy whiskers require a good deal of 
nursing and trimming," found within the pages of the 
little old blue spelling book, may have been evolved from 
the brain of this great man during his residence in 
Amherst. When he moved out of town, the East Street 
people in their triumph over the Center, rang the church 
bell and fired a salute from the old cannon. 

East Amherst boasted the first postoffice, one mail a 
week being brought by stage-coach from Northampton. 
In this mail came the county paper, \hQ Hafnps/iire Gazette, 
the chief means by which the farmers learned the news 



JO Mary Mattoon and 

from the outside world. Among the gems of poetry in the 
Gazette in 1817 was the " Burial of Sir John Moore," and 
the " Old Oaken Bucket." A sea serpent with a body 
" larger than the mast of a ship " was reported to have 
been seen off Gloucester harbor. A certain Captain 
Joseph Ferry, aged ninety-four, who had just died, was 
declared to have been buried in Springfield, "where had 
previously been deposited the remains of his 5 mothers 
and his 5 wives." The readers of the Gazette certainly 
learned all the news, and almost every issue for years bore 
somewhere on its pages the name of Ebenezer Mattoon. 
Suddenly, about 1818, his name appeared no more. The 
news soon spread that the great man of Amherst, he whom 
it was expected would soon be elected governor of the 
state, had become totally blind. A simple cold taken in 
the year when snow fell every month, had produced an 
inflammation which destroyed the sight of those keen 
eyes, and obliged him to resign his position as Adjutant 
General. 

This misfortune to so eminent an officer was severely 
felt by his associates in public life. In 18 17 he had 
become a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery 
Company, expecting to serve as a private, for although an 
old man, he was proud again to shoulder his gun in the 
ranks. The same year he was elected Captain and was 
chairman of a committee which petitioned the governor 
for two brass six pounders to be used in their drill in 



Her Hero of the Revolution yi 

order that they might " be restored to the ancient situation 
of the company as the name imports, as well as to assist 
them in a correct knowledge in the exercises of artillery." 
June 3, 1818, when he was to have returned his badge of 
office, he was prevented by a " distressing indisposition." 
He was heard to observe on the election day, from the 
ceremonies of which he was detained, that " it was one 
of the most melancholy days he had ever been called 
upon to spend, as he had calculated with no small degree 
of pride on that day." When in 1834 the Ancient and 
Honorable Artillery Company observed its one hundred 
and ninety-sixth anniversary, General Mattoon, the oldest 
member living, was led around the company, and thus 
reviewed it, though he was totally blind. 

With characteristic resolution our hero rallied his 
energies to meet the calamity which had come upon him. 
He still had many visitors from abroad who came to 
sympathize and went away filled with admiration for the 
old soldier, fighting his hardest battle. In 1820 he was 
a delegate to the convention for amending the Constitu- 
tion, and the same year was a member of the electoral 
college. He was in great demand as a speaker on public 
occasions and was consulted as authority on points con- 
nected with public affairs. 

The cares of Mary Mattoon were much increased when 
she was least able to bear the strain. Her son, the law- 
yer, had gone west, and could not be consulted with 



^2 Mary Mattoo)i and 

regard to the management of the estate. The mistress 
attempted to be her husband's eyes as well as hands and 
feet, but her endurance finally failed. As time passed 
rheumatism claimed her for a victim and her upright 
form became bent and twisted. The General missed his 
eyes, and also missed the quick step and ready hand of 
her upon whom he had depended for so many years. In 
1828, he was again a member of the electoral college. 
After this we find no record of his appointment to any 
public office. 

The grandchildren of Mary Mattoon remember her in 
her last days as sitting in her chair beside her husband, 
so bent that her head very nearly touched her knees, try- 
ing still in her feeble way to take the place of the eyes 
which he had lost. She was able with difficulty to walk 
about the lower part of the house, and though in reality 
three years younger than the General she seemed many 
years his senior. His outdoor life of travel with variety 
of occupations had kept him young and had stored his 
mind with an inexhaustible fund of tales and anecdotes 
of both public and private interest. We cannot doubt 
that he who remembered her so faithfully when absent, 
now was happy to give her of his best. With unselfish 
devotion she had rejoiced to spend her best years in his 
service. The dull routine of daily duties, with no recre- 
ation or amusement, had broken down her sturdy frame, 
and now in her last years she was obliged to be depend- 




GENERAL MATTOON. 
Copy of the Trttmlntll portrait. 



Her Hero of the Revohition yj 

ent upon others. The blind old man and the helpless 
old woman, a true hero and heroine of old New England, 
sat side by side in the East Street home and communed 
of the past. 

This pathetic picture is relieved by the remembrance 
of the cheerful disposition of the old soldier, who by his 
funny stories made the home bright, and drew about 
him the children and young people from all parts of the 
town. One would think that he had many reasons to be 
sorrowful, for his business interests had greatly suffered, 
and from being wealthy he had become comparatively 
poor. Never for a moment did he lose courage or fail to 
take an active interest in everything going on about him. 
He dictated descriptions of the battle of Saratoga for 
various papers. The children in the neighborhood were 
taught to call him " Grandpa," and were pressed into his 
service as gsuides about the town. Many living to-day 
count this experience as among the happiest of their 
childish recollections. Strangers who went to call upon 
the General did not see his wife, but her grandchildren 
still speak of her as being "not much of a talker," and 
say that she was " good," and that she was bent over 
because of much hard work. She would not have made 
a handsome picture at that time, but the beauty of her 
unselfish life shone forth in those blue eyes, which from 
beneath the shadow of the tall white cap sought her hus- 
band's face as long as consciousness remained. Mary 



7^ Mary Mattoon and 

Mattoon died quietly as she had lived. She slipped out 
of life July 30, 1835, ^g^d seventy-seven. One line in 
the newspaper announced her death. After a simple 
funeral service, the old West cemetery received the dis- 
torted body. She was buried by the side of " Fanny " 
and "Fanny 2nd," and her name is cut beneath that of 
her husband on the same stone. The story of her heroic 
life of self sacrificing love, though heretofore not written 
on earth, is recorded in Heaven. 



X. 



THE General's business affairs had become so 
involved that the year before the death of his 
wife all his real estate and that belonging to his 
son were sold at public auction. This property included 
the farm described as " situated about one mile and a 
half north of the colleges in Amherst, containing about 
200 acres," " a farm lying near the second Parish meeting 
house in said Amherst containing about 100 acres," "the 
Hendrick farm lying about one half a mile south of the 
second parish meeting-house containing about 80 acres of 
excellent land," one hundred acres of pasture and wood- 
land in Leverett, thirty acres of woodland in Pelham, 



Her Hero of the Revolution 75 

and fifteen acres of mowing and pasture land in East 
Amherst. The loss of property and the consequent 
auction must have been terrible blows to Mary Mattoon 
and probably hastened her death. We are glad to know 
that she was not obliged to leave her home, and that the 
General was able to live there in comfort to the close of 
his life. He must have sadly missed his wife, but he 
seems never to have lacked for friends. His niece, 
Elizabeth Clapp Kellogg, lived in his family from her 
seventh year until she married Ithamar Conkey. Her 
son, Ithamar Conkey, became a leading Amherst lawyer. 
The General's granddaughter, Mrs. Wolcott, when a child,, 
was a member of his household, and was devotedly 
attached to him. Her daughter, Mrs. Clapp, says : 
" Tucked away in my treasure-box is a strand of silvery 
hair which my mother cut when as a child, she sat in the 
dear old grandfather's lap and read the Bible to him." 
This little girl was his constant companion, his blindness 
making him turn to her for many little offices. She often 
said there was no one she loved in those days as she did 
her grandfather. 

Besides the Bible, this little girl read the Hampshire 
Gazette to the old man, and much interesting information 
the pair discovered in its pages. The canal-boat James 
Hillhouse was announced to leave the wharf near the 
Mansion house, Northampton, every Thursday, for 
" Newhaven." The county Total Abstinence Society 



jd Mary Mattoon and 

was formed, with General David Mack of Amherst as its 
president. Mrs. Dorcas Bogue, aged " loo yrs 20 days," 
died in Amherst. The silkworm craze struck the Con- 
necticut Valley, and the " Amherst Silk Society " was 
formed. The farmers were adjured : 

" If ye aspire to wealth and ease, 

Stock well your farm with mulberry trees." 

Many farmers followed this advice, but the wealth and 
ease did not materialize. The " New England Zoological 
Society " came to old Hadley. An advertisement in the 
Gazette said : " The inmates of these cages form a most 
Gigantic and imposing spectacle." One of these 
"inmates" made its escape and wandered over to 
Amherst. The Gazette then said " A stray ostrich which 
escaped from the menagerie was met by farmers on the 
road between Belchertown and Amherst," and added : 
" These miserable caravans with their circuses and Jim 
Crows ought not to be permitted to traverse the Country 
disturbing the peace and quiet even of the Sabbath Day." 
Fresh meat sold in Northampton for twelve cents a pound 
and in Amherst for sixteen cents. The Gazette said : 
*' We must all become Grahamites and live upon bran 
bread and saw dust puddings." To help them chew this 
expensive meat people were buying " mineral teeth," 
" Incorruptible teeth " and " double sets of teeth with 
springs," of Dr. Charles Walker in Northampton. 

General Mattoon retained his own teeth in good con- 



Her Hero of the Revoltition yy 

dition to the end of his life, and so he did not need to 
patronize the Northampton dentist. He was, however, 
much interested in all advertisements of new inventions. 
He was glad to learn that his neighbor, Willard Kellogg, 
had a yoke of oxen weighing 4200 pounds, and that 
Nathaniel Farrar had raised a beet in his garden which 
weighed ?>\ pounds and measured 17 J inches in circum- 
ference. There is no doubt but that he shared the gen- 
eral excitement when the canal-boat, Davy Crockett, drawn 
by four grey horses, reached Northampton from Westfield. 
The announcement that the steamboat, John Ledyard^ 
built in Springfield, was carrying passengers and freight 
between that city and Wells River must have recalled to 
him those college days at Dartmouth, and the "great 
American traveller " after whom the boat was named. 

Ail these events, as recorded in the Gazette, the little 
girl read to her old blind grandfather. The Gazette for 
Dec. 2, 1835, contains an article of two and a half col- 
umns signed " E. Mattoon." The writer describes in 
clearest language what took place between Oct. 7 and 17, 
1777. About this time he visited the scenes of those 
battles, and with no uncertain step walked to an elevated 
place, from which, pointing with his cane, he described 
the location of the left wing, and the position where 
stood the General and his aids. The stump of a tree and 
other indications proved the truth of his statements. 

His long life of strenuous effort, and the loss of his 
LofC. 



J 8 Mary Mat to on and 

eyesight, had not dimmed his recollection of those scenes 
in which he was an actor more than fifty years before. 

The old cannon which General Mattoon brought from 
Saratoga for many years was the chief feature in patriotic 
demonstrations. It's owner willingly loaned it to the 
boys, and when it was not in use kept it in the barn 
behind his house. Which section of the town should 
have the gun was a disputed question before each Fourth 
of July, and the General, the oldest boy of all, let the 
others fight it out. After the college was estabUshed the 
students found the gun very useful to assist in their cele- 
brations, and took their turn in stealing it from the boys 
in the Center. In the summer of 183 1 the much desired 
fieldpiece mysteriously disappeared, and though search has 
many times been made no trace of it has ever been found. 
In 1896 there was discovered a letter written in 1858, 
which describes the burying of the gun by a party of 
students, and tells exactly where it might be discovered, 
but all the landmarks had disappeared, and search was 
unavailing. It is probable that under Main street, over 
which run the Amherst & Sunderland electric cars, the 
old cannon rests securely, never to be resurrected. The 
student who described the hiding of the gun said that 
" General Mattoon was in perfect ecstacies at the fun of 
the thing." 

Amherst College delighted to honor General Mattoon. 
Professor Fiske invited him to be seated on the platform in 



Her Hero of the Revohition yg 

College Hall when he gave a lecture on the battle of Sara- 
toga and the surrender of Burgoyne. When called upon 
to speak, the old soldier expressed his pleasure at the 
correct statements made, and then narrated an amusing 
incident. The day before the battle he was stationed 
with his artillery opposite an outpost of the enemy. A 
young British soldier called out: "Give us a dish of 
pumpkin and milk." Lieutenant Mattoon responded by 
ordering a gunner to train a gun filled with grape shot on 
the campfire. The logs were scattered in all directions. 

During these last years Colonel Trumbull, who painted 
the portraits of many Revolutionary officers, came to 
Amherst, and asked General Mattoon to go to New Haven 
and sit for his picture. We are indebted for the copy of 
this picture, as painted by the distinguished artist, to Mr. 
Gridley, grandson of General Mattoon. Mrs. Clapp, the 
owner of the picture of Mary Mattoon, says that the 
original Trumbull portrait of the General is in the pos- 
session of Mrs. Eliza Orme. 

The people of Amherst well remember the erect sol- 
dierly figure of General Mattoon as with his cane he 
walked about the streets. By counting his steps he could 
find his way anywhere he desired to go, but so many 
children were anxious to lead him that he was often seen 
with a flock of them about him. He was not content to 
remain at home, but even in extreme old age took trips to 
different parts of the country. In 1839 he visited his 



8o Mary Mattoon and 

Alma Mater, Dartmouth college. ^Mrs. Robinson, grand- 
daughter of Noah D. Mattoon, telts of a visit the Gen- 
eral made to her grandfather when the latter was living 
in Unionville, Ohiaj The old General and his son went 
to call on Judge Wheeler. A few days after, the General 
repeated the visit, going and coming alone in perfect 
safety. He had counted his steps the first time he went 
over the? ground. After 1830 he made two journeys to 
Boston every year to draw his pension, upon which he lived. 
His granddaughter, Mrs. Vannevar, mentions the fact 
that he visited her in Boston the spring before he died, 
when he must have been eighty-seven years old. He also 
travelled to Philadelphia and had a visit with Mrs. Wol- 
cott, his granddaughter. She found him as amusing and 
cheerful as of old, and heard him repeat with delight the 
stories which he used to tell the little East Street girl. 
He never repined or complained about his blindness, but 
said that he considered it to be one of the greatest bless- 
ings that had ever come to him. He seemed to feel that 
his ambitions had for a season occupied too large a share 
in his life. 

In 1840 Levi Stockbridge heard General Mattoon speak 
in College Hall at the time of the Harrison campaign. 
In ringing tones the old Revolutionary hero of eighty-five 
declared that if he had a son who would not vote for 
Harrison he would disown him. The old soldier was not 
dead yet! Henry Jackson remembered that when there 



/ 




BURIAL LOT IN WEST CEMETERY. 



Her Hero of the Revottitioii 8i 

was some trouble in the East Street school, the blind old 
General came over, and rapping violently with his cane, 
said, " I have come to see about this !" This quelled the 
disturbance. A party of boys were playing ball east of 
the General's house. The General appeared and shaking 
his cane ordered them to leave. They ran away so 
frightened that two boys tried to get through the same 
hole in the fence and one had to back out. The com- 
manding voice and figure compelled obedience though 
the old man was blind and helpless. 

Sept. 12, 1843, we find in the Hampshire Gazette: 
" Another hero gone. It becomes our melancholy duty 
to record the death of another revolutionary patriot. 
General Ebenezer Mattoon departed this life in Amherst 
yesterday afternoon, Sept. 11, at 4 o'clock, after a sick- 
ness of about four weeks." 

Mrs. Vannevar says : " Grandfather died in the old 
house and my mother (the wife of his son Ebenezer) 
took care of him. He was sick from the 4th of July till 
the nth of September. He was very patient through his 
sickness." 

The following week the Gazette published : 

" The funeral obsequies of this venerable patriot and 

Christian were observed in the church in which he was 

accustomed to worship, in East Amherst, on Thursday 

afternoon last. A large number assembled to pay their 



82 Mary Mattoon and 

tribute of respect and affection to the high standing and 
worth of their deceased friend and fellow citizen. The 
solemnities of the occasion were opened with a dirge, fol- 
lowed by reading of scripture and prayer by Rev. Dr. 
Humphrey and sermon by Rev. Mr. Belden, pastor of the 
church. The discourse was very appropriate to the 
solemn event ; but in compliance with the wishes of the 
deceased, the occasion was improved for the benefit of 
the living, rather than in bestowment of panegyric upon 
the dead. The deceased had selected the following pas- 
sage in Job, which he had meditated much upon, as the 
theme of discourse : But man dieth, and wasteth away ; 
yea, man giveth up the Ghost, and where is he ? . . . 
The preacher expressed unwavering confidence in the 
belief that the venerable patriot of the Revolution had 
died fighting in the cause of the Redeemer, and was 
enjoying the rich reward of the faithful soldier of the 
cross. The deceased attributed his final conversion to 
the Providence of God which deprived him of sight. 
That otherwise great calamity had been the source of 
his greatest blessing." 

Side by side in old West cemetery, surrounded by a 
host of friends and neighbors, Mary Mattoon and her 
Hero of the Revolution sleep. The tombstone bears 
these inscriptions : 

"Gen. Ebenezer Mattoon died Sept. ii, 1843,^. 88." 

" Mary D. wife of General E. Mattoon died, July 30, 
1835, ^- 77." 

The Amherst Chapter^ Daughters of the American Rei'o- 
hition, is proud to bear the name of Mary Mattoon, a 



Her Hero of the Revolution 8j 

woman who, like the wife of Samuel Adams, was ambitious 
for her Hero of the Revolution, to whose success 
she devoted with loving self-sacrifice a life of arduous 
toil, a life inconspicuous, but none the less worthy of her 
country's praise, an example of those domestic virtues 
which made the New England home the source of the 
nation's strength. 



2^25 \^^^ 



PRESS OF 

Carpenter & Morehouse, 
amherst, mass. 



LBFe '13 



